Horizon: Forbidden West

Journey to the West

If there's one positive that no one can take away from Sony in the last console generation, it was the plain fact that they freakin' nailed it with the exclusives. (And by that I refer to exclusives that they funded, I don't respect the one's that they bought) In fact, Sony made so many great exclusives in the last generation that their worst one was probably 'Days Gone', and even that was an above average game by most standards. And that, at the end of the day, is the single most important thing for any gaming platform to have. It's why the Ouya failed, why EA have started selling their games on Steam, and why Sony have held unparalleled console dominance for the majority of the past decade. Thus it should come to the surprise of literally no one that during their PS5 event Sony continued to put their money in their most successful policy. And hence we have: 'Horizon: Forbidden West'. 

Now seeing as how I'm still in the process of zeroing in on a buyer for my kidney, I never managed to pick up a Playstation 4 and thus haven't tried 'Horizon: Zero Dawn', but I know it's pedigree well enough. It dropped back in 2017 and put it's developers, Guerrilla Games, back on the map after their last game was received a little lukewarm due to it being more a great tech demo than a game with any creative heart to it. (Although in their defence, so was the rest of the Killzone franchise, what did you really expect?) It was a much lauded game which featured an idealised version of the 'Ubisoft-style' open world, an apparently strong narrative with great characters and a engine so beautiful that even today screens of that game look great. (I especially love the way it handles light and particles, it almost gives the current Final Fantasy engine a run for it's money.) It also served as a great reminder to publishers that single player games could still seal a profit in a time when they were eager to forget that, although it was 'God of War' which really shut up the critics on that particular front. (With good reason. Who wants to question Kratos to his face?)

But for some reason the game didn't really manage to settle a place in pop culture, surprising for how popular it was at it's release. That isn't to say that public reception turned, not at all, just that people didn't really talk about in conversations about Sony's success'. You would hear people mention Spiderman, God of War, Last of Us, Uncharted etc, but Horizon only really got an influx of attention when it's DLC dropped. I only remember it being significantly addressed during the hype for 'Death Stranding' were Kojima mentioned working with their team to develop his own engine on their framework. (I think he just ended up sharing their engine in the end.) As someone who never played the title I wasn't really in with the community, so I couldn't accurately claim why the game's light faded like it did, merely speculate; but the result was that a decent number of folk forgot about this franchise until the PS5 reveal event rolled around. (At least it's getting it's day now.)

The immediate take away that I think even those coming fresh to the Horizon train would have, it's that the whole thing looks absolutely beautiful. As I understand it (and I may be hugely off-base here) the whole concept revolves around this pseudo-spiritual sci-fi post apocalypse where nature has taken over and there's also gigantic robots in the form of dinosaurs. (Still don't know what the robots are about. Might wanna look that up.) And although the genre is decidedly Sci-fi, the spiritual elements allow for a more classical fantastical narrative like an epic journey to prevent the end of the world from... something. (Again, never played the game. I'm in the dark here.) If there's a couple ingredients that every epic needs in order to successfully sell it's premise it's scale and diversity; and man-oh-man does this trailer shine in that regard.

I don't know if the original title maybe received some slack for samey environments which caused the team to develop some sort of complex, but I'm astounded by the lengths they've gone to stick popping visuals in every location. They have these vein-like metal tentacles in the tundra-expanses, scarlet fauna beneath stormy skies, vibrant bursting coral and even a bit of desert. (You don't really need to work to make a desert pop. It's just naturally like that.) What this trailer shows specifically which I didn't notice from my brief time looking at promos for the first game, was an abundance of relic ruins from the old world that helps place where you are in relation to things. I mean, this could have been a totally fictional world for all I know but seeing this trailer I think it's pretty evident that we all recognised the Golden Gate bridge poking out above the canopy. This alone strokes my 'Nier: Automata' vibes and makes me excited for all the opportunities for commentary which I'm sure they'll brush by or touch in a manner that makes me wish Nier's writers were in charge. (But I can hope.)

It's hard to really dig into what I hope this game can achieve without knowing the original title, but I will say what I hope the games in general will be once I get my hands on them. (Now that they are no longer exclusives. Yay!) Playing a lot of Ubisoft games I've noticed that they've dived away from their cinematic angle and more towards freedom, which is great for the playability but absolutely abysmal for their storytelling skills. (Which weren't exactly top-notch anyway) As Ubisoft pretty much sets the absolute minimum requirement for an average open world game nowadays, I absolutely cannot let this stand and need them to significantly up their game. (a rising tide lifts all boats, guys.) Now I already know that 'Zero Dawn' had some significant cinematic DNA and I hope that Forbidden West can continue that and set an example for the industry. If the game really did reach this balance of playability and epic narrative crafting as I've heard so many say, then let that shine and stand as a beacon. (I want this game to have a longer presence than it's predecessor did.)

And when it comes to the question of if it was wise to have this showcased at the Playstation 5 reveal event I have to err towards the yes, this was exactly the right kind of game for the show. Horizon does a fantastic job of teasing the power of the console, with gorgeous rendering of the natural fauna and animals as well as the more busy designs of the mechanicals. Nailing both organics and synthetics is impressive, and yet the Decima engine, powered by the Playstation 5, makes it look positively easy. The winning shot in my mind was off this turtle mech, known as an 'Amphibious Shellsnapper' according to the game's twitter, rising out of the ground with a shell covered in moss and foliage. It's like the poster child for goodlooking gaming and Playstation would be insane not to try and attach such images to their new console. This here's a system seller.

In conclusion, I'm happy that Guerrilla Games have managed to press onward with the Horizon series, as it looks worlds more interesting than Killzone, and I'm even more ecstatic now that the franchise has made it to PC alongside Death Stranding. As first party exclusives go I think this will be a power house that Microsoft will have a hard time matching, and seeing as how my schedule dictates that I'm writing this several hours before the Microsoft conference I'm yet to see if they even will. (My money's on a hard no.) If this is indicative of Sony's plan to double down on their high quality first-party games model than I think they've set a stellar example and excuse to buy the PS5. Unfortunately I'm getting word back that my kidney's are apparently 'worthless', so I won't be able to enjoy that promising ecosystem anytime soon. (More's the pity for me.)